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Help:Archiving a talk page
It is customary to periodically archive old discussions on a talk page when that page becomes too large. Bulky talk pages may be difficult to navigate, contain obsolete discussion, or become a burden for users with slow Internet connections or computers. On the other hand, there may be circumstances where it benefits discussions to keep older sections visible on the talk pages, so that newly-visiting editors can see which issues have been addressed already and avoid redundant discussion. Regular articles are not archived because previous versions may be seen in the history tab; the tradition of archiving is peculiar to talk pages and noticeboards, which often swell to great length. Archiving one's own user talk page is optional and is preferred over deletion so that past discussions can be easily searched. Archive pages should be named as follows: take the name of the talk page, and add "/Archive #", where # is the number of the archive. Note that the word "Archive" has a capital A, there is a space before the number, and there are no leading zeros. For example: * the 20th archive of Talk:Earth would be named Talk:Earth/Archive 20 * the first archive of User talk:Example user would be named User talk:Example user/Archive 1 Remember to use the correct namespace – the part before the colon (:) – when archiving your own user talk page. It should start with "User talk:", not "Talk:". Cut and paste procedure # Click on edit this page for the talk page you wish to archive. # In the edit box, highlight all the text you want to archive, right-click (Windows/Linux) or control-click (Mac) and then select cut. The text will then be copied to your clipboard. # While still in the edit window, make a link to the archive name you plan on creating – you can link directly to a subpage by putting a slash (/) in front of it. #* If you're making a topical archive, use the name of the topic, for example /Place of birth debate. #* If you're just archiving old discussion, use the next available number; so if the last archive page was Archive 3, call it /Archive 4. #* If there are no archives yet, call it /Archive 1. #* Archive links can be conveniently placed in an archive template (How to do this is described in the archive box section below) # Save the page. You should now have a page of recent discussion with a red link to your archive at the top. # Open the newly created subpage by clicking the red link. Paste the old discussions from your clipboard into the edit box. # Add to the top and bottom of the page. This adds a notice explaining that the page is an archive, and links back to the main talk page. #If this is a numbered archive, you can add a navigation template to make it easier to navigate through to other numbered archives. # Save. You have now created an archive.